Ahead of the return of the health and social care bill to the House of Lords today, the papers are full of stories David Cameron is seeking to distance himself from the coalition’s heavily-criticised reforms and hang them round the neck of Andrew Lansley.

The truth, of course, is vastly different to the lines briefed out by Downing Street – the bill is as much the prime minister’s as it is his embattled health secretary’s. As the excerpts below show, he says he helped design it, he has repeatedly backed it in public and he is responsible for it – this is David Cameron’s disastrous NHS reorganisation.

• In July 2010, David Cameron, alongside Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley, personally signed the foreword to the white paper – “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS” (pdf) – which set out the government’s NHS reorganisation plans:

“The NHS is a great national institution. The principles it was founded on are as important now as they were then: free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not ability to pay. But we believe that it can be so much better – for both patients and professionals.

“That’s why we’ve set out a bold vision for the future of the NHS – rooted in the coalition’s core beliefs of freedom, fairness and responsibility.

“We will make the NHS more accountable to patients. We will free staff from excessive bureaucracy and top-down control. We will increase real terms spending on the health service in every year of this Parliament.

“Our ambition is to once again make the NHS the envy of the world. Liberating the NHS – a blend of Conservative and Liberal Democrat ideas – sets out our plans to do this.”

• In April 2011, Mr Cameron told Sky News’s Dermot Murnaghan he had “been involved in designing these changes way back into opposition” with Mr Lansley, and takes “absolute responsibility with him for all the changes we are making”:

DM: “Well you were ploughing on until you ran into so much political trouble. Mr Lansley for a long time seemed to be in charge of the process himself, it was only when Number Ten took on board the enormity of the proposed changes, isn’t it?”

DC: “No, not at all. I mean I have been involved in designing these changes way back into opposition with Andrew Lansley, I take absolute responsibility with him for all of the changes we are making but I do think it is right when you have an asset as precious as the National Health Service, if you have the time to just stop and make sure you are getting everything right and at the same time what I’m finding is when you go particularly to hospitals, a lot of this is about reassuring clinicians in hospitals, hospital doctors, that they will have a really big part in this future NHS.”

• The prime minister has regularly defended the reorganisation inside and outside Parliament:

“First of all, let us be clear about the fact that the reforms are about cutting bureaucracy and improving patient care. They were drawn up by us as a coalition to improve the NHS.” – PMQs, March 2011

“It’s because I love the NHS so much that I want to change it… Because the fact is the NHS needs to change. It needs to change to make it work better today and it needs to change to avoid a crisis tomorrow.” – Speech at Ealing Hospital, May 2011

“Three weeks ago, I made the case for change in our NHS. I said we would be kidding ourselves if we thought we could simply stick with the status quo. We need to change the NHS to make it work better today.” – Follow-up speech on the NHS, June 2011

“Of course there are doctors in the health service who don’t like the idea of greater choice and competition and other organisations being able to provide free healthcare services to patients. But I believe patients want that sort of choice and rapid, quality treatment and that’s why it’s right to make these reforms.” – Interview with the BBC, October 2011, in response to a Telegraph letter from doctors and academics warning “the proposed reforms will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country’s public health capabilities”

• Cameron’s former No. 10 adviser James O’Shaughnessy recently revealed that during the “pause” last year “it did take the energy of Steve [Hilton] and the prime minister and Oliver Letwin and others to keep pushing it through”:

“We came in with what we thought were fairly well thought through proposals that then did seem to be running into opposition at a variety of levels, whether it’s the House of Lords or staff or other groups.

“I think there was a lesson in there for all of us which is actually, if you look where we’ve got to with the health bill, the fundaments of what we were trying to do are still there but it did take the energy of Steve and the prime minister and Oliver Letwin and others to keep pushing it through, to weigh in behind that and adopt different tactics in order to get the same principles across.” – “David Cameron’s Big Idea” (listen), BBC Radio 4, January 2012

• And just last week, at PMQs, David Cameron made it clear he would not back down – even citing Tony Blair in his support:

“Let me tell the Right Honourable Gentleman something that Tony Blair once wrote about the process of reform. Now there is a man who knows a thing about bonuses and pay.

“He said this – listen, listen:

‘It is an object lesson in the progress of reform: the change is proposed; it is denounced as a disaster; it proceeds with vast… opposition; it is unpopular; it comes about; within a short space of time, it is as if it has always been so. The lesson is instructive: if you think a change is right, go with it. The opposition is inevitable, but rarely is it unbeatable.’

“That was someone who knew a thing or two about reform.”

Mr Cameron may run, but he can’t hide from the reality that these are his reforms, that he has resolutely stuck by them, and that he is ignoring pretty much everyone who cares about the NHS and is refusing to kill the bill.

See also:

• Miliband goes on attack as fight to save the NHS stepped up – Shamik Das, February 6th 2012

• Sign my petition to drop Lansley’s monster – Dr Kailash Chand OBE, November 24th 2011

• Cameron’s fantasy list of NHS reform backers – Shamik Das, September 7th 2011

• Doctors still fear coalition health reforms – Daniel Elton, June 27th 2011

• So who backs Lansley’s health reforms then? – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

• Doctors tell Lansley: “Stop this bill” – Dominic Browne, March 15th 2011

• So, Mr Cameron, who backs your NHS reforms? Erm… – Shamik Das, February 2nd 2011

Three months out from May’s Mayoral elections, Ken Livingstone today unveiled his “policing pledge for London”.

The two key planks of the Labour candidate’s promise are to reverse present Mayor Boris Johnson’s cuts to 1,700 police officers in the Met, and to reinstate sergeants to all 600 Safer Neighbourhood Teams, more of which will be beefed up to a minimum of nine officers, reversing the Tory incumbent’s cut to 300 sergeants in 2011.

Figures from the Metropolitan Police show violent crimes such as robbery, residential burglary and rape have all risen while police numbers have been cut, with knife crime rising every year under Johnson.

Police officer numbers peaked in 2010 at 33,260 officers; there are currently now just 31,657 officers in London. Last month, having earlier tried to spin otherwise, Boris finally admitted cutting 1,700 police officers.

Livingstone today said:

“Boris Johnson has admitted cutting 1,700 police officers. If I am elected, I will reverse his cuts. And I will reinstate sergeants to all 600 Safer Neighbourhood Teams, more of which will be beefed up to a minimum of nine officers.

“At a time when violent crimes including robbery, knife crime and rape are all rising in London it’s time to reverse the Tory Mayor’s cuts to the police and make the streets safer.”

With Labour’s Joanne McCartney AM, who called Boris “completely out of touch”, adding:

“Londoners across the capital have been appalled by Boris Johnson’s police cuts. It’s essential that there is a visible policing presence on our streets.

“Boris Johnson’s decision to cut 1700 police officers, including 300 experienced local police team sergeants shows why he is increasingly known as a Mayor who is completely out of touch.”

Labour say Ken will bring in new money to fund his pledge by ensuring Transport for London pays the full cost of the Safer Transport teams; reducing spending on bureaucracy at the new Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPC); standing up against the national government’s cuts; and deploying new technology to ensure smarter working and increase detection rates.

The election takes place on Thursday, May 3rd.

See also:

• Boris Johnson’s use of statistics are designed to mislead the public – Len Duvall AM, January 25th 2012

• Ken pulls ahead of “increasingly out of touch” Boris – Shamik Das, January 19th 2012

• Boris’s retreat from accountability over the Met should worry us all – Joanne McCartney AM, January 16th 2012

• Anger with police sparked the riots – Ben Mitchell, December 4th 2011

• Boris is turning back the clock for women in London – Shelly Asquith, November 14th 2011

• Ken v Boris: Six months out, Livingstone steps up the pressure on transport and crime – Shelly Asquith, November 8th 2011

• The stats show the Tories make you worse off and less safe – Michael Burke, July 24th 2011

Besieged residents of the Syrian city of Homs are crying out for Western intervention to save them from being slaughtered at the hands of Bashar al-Assad.

There are calls for “unilateral American and British intervention” after the shameful Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN, and further pleas for a no-fly zone, which could result in up to “70 per cent” of the Syrian Army defecting.

Death stalks Homs, which is under its fiercest attack of the 11-month uprising; the BBC’s Paul Wood says there is now “nowhere to hide” for the city’s people.

Alaa al-Sheikh, spokesman for the Khaled Bin Waleed brigade of Syrian rebels, told The Henry Jackson Society’s Michael Weiss that 42 people had been killed in the city of Rastan alone, describing how:

“There are bodies that could not be documented because they were completely mutilated and disfigured.”

Al-Sheikh pleads:

“As an activist and a coordinator for the Khaled Bin Waleed brigade, I state that we in Homs, Idlib and Damascus suburbs call for unilateral American and British intervention. We also want to improve our relations with the US administration and people after the revolution, but we need you to save us.

“We are getting slaughtered, save us.”

As Weiss explains in the Telegraph, what is now needed “is not condemnations, demarches and shuttered embassies but a Western equivalent of intervention in Syria”, in the form of:

• Humanitarian “safe areas” to provide food, aid and medical supplies to the civilian population and give the various opposition groups a headquarters inside their own country;

• Advanced weapons and communication devices for the Syrian rebels;

• A no-fly zone to stop the regime from using its aircraft to conduct reconnaissance, offload security personnel and – yes – strafe rebel strongholds from the sky.

Also pleading for action is Danny Abdul Dayem, in the Baba Amr district of Homs, who told the BBC:

“I’ve been up from five o’clock am from the rockets, they started hitting us with rocket launchers from five am, more than 300 rockets have landed in just this area I’m sitting in in Baba Amr. I went to the field hospital at seven am, more than 25 pieces of bodies, children, women, men, dead people, either by shelling in their houses - the rockets either killed them in their houses – or the sniper even shot them.

“One of my friend’s dad died by a sniper. He was crying and he was asking me, he wanted a pen, he just wanted a pen to write on the cover of his dad because they’ve got a sheet around his dad, he wanted to write his dad’s name on the cover, that’s all he wanted, a pen.

“There’s bodies. Until now, the bombardment hasn’t stopped by rockets, this is the first time they have hit us with rockets. They used to bombard us with, for six months, they have been bombarding us with tank shells and mortar bombs, but today they started with rockets, rocket launchers, this is after what the UN did two days ago, what the UN cited, the UN gave our regime the green light to kill, the UN gave the Assad regime to kill more, they gave him the ok, they told him that no one’s gonna, gonna do anything about it, no one’s gonna help the Syrian people.

“All we’re asking about is help, they’ve hit part of the field hospitals, it’s not a normal hospital, it’s not a private hospital, it’s not a government hospital, it’s one of the field hospitals we have here in Baba Amr, we did it in one of the civilian houses, he had allowed us to do a field hospital in his house, one of the rockets landed in that field hospital, killed the doctors and killed the nurses and the patients in it, now we have only one field hospital left in Baba Amr.

“You should see all the injured people on the floor, we have no place to put them, some of them are dying from a stupid injury like a bullet in the leg, or a bullet in the hand, cos we have no time to rescue them, we don’t have enough doctors, we can’t even stitch up their wounds, there’s so many injuries, there’s more than 20 bodies unknown, we don’t know who they are cos their faces are blown up, the pieces of bodies, you should see the bodies we have here on the ground, you can’t move them.

“Baba Amr, this area in Homs, is surrounded by snipers and barricades, army barricades, they’re not letting anyone out or anyone in, they’re not letting any medication in, any doctors in, any help in, they shot at some civilian guards they were trying to get medication in, and they also shot at two ambulance, Red Crescent ambulance, they wouldn’t let them in…

“They [the Free Syria Army] can’t do anything about this, this is bombarding from 15 kilometres away, how are they gonna stop rockets from landing on civilian houses, they cannot attack, as we explained a long time ago, the Free Syrian Army here, are here to defend only, they can defend, they can defend us from the army coming in, but they can’t defend us from bombardment, even they can’t do anything now, all they have is some Kalashnikovs and some RPGs and just now I saw what President Obama said on TV, that they wanna do, they wanna solve this problem without any military, without any military problems between them and Syria.

“Let me just say something: this Syrian regime will not go down, they will not leave without force, without military hits, we need no fly zone, which we don’t have; if we had no fly zone 70 per cent of our Syrian Army will defect with their heavy artillery and their tanks but they can’t because they will be hit by planes, until now we’re being bombarded.

“What the Free Syrian Army tried to explain to me about the plan was, is that the Syrian Army are going to bombard us for five days, they’re gonna pile us, they’re not gonna let no medication in or food in for five whole days, then the Army’s gonna try and get in, that’s their plan.”

The BBC’s Paul Wood adds from Homs:

“Syrian state television denied that there had been any bombardment. It said residents were setting fire to piles of rubbish on the roofs of their homes to trick the world into thinking that there was an attack.

“There is no doubt, however, from what we have seen and heard, that hundreds of shells and mortars have been fired at this place during the day. As I write this, the windows of the house we are in are still reverberating from the impact of a shell, probably in the next street.

“It is true that people have been setting fire to rubbish in the streets. They believe it will confuse the guidance systems of rockets apparently being fired at them. They are probably mistaken.

“People in this part of Homs say these attacks are the worst they have known since the beginning of the uprising, almost a year ago. The bombing has been going on for several days now.”

As we have long said on Left Foot Forward, something, something, must be done; how many more must die before our eyes?

See also:

• Anti-Assad activist: “We need help… We need a no-fly zone… ASAP” – Shamik Das, February 1st 2012

• Syria: When will the West act? – Shamik Das, January 2nd 2012

• Syria ‘safe havens’ point to growing likelihood of civil war – Alex Hern, November 25th 2011

• A Syrian civil war is becoming ever more likely – Alex Hern, October 27th 2011

• Syrian government uses hospitals against protesters – Alex Hern, October 25th 2011

• Syrian Uprising: YouTube clips show continued demonstrations after Hama massacre – Daniel Elton, August 1st 2011

• Syria, where innocence is no defence – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

Ed Miliband will step up the war of words over the coalition’s health reforms today, warning 6,000 nursing jobs are at risk unless the health bill is defeated.

The number of full-time qualified nurses fell 3,516 from 281,431 at the election to 277,915 in October, according to data from the NHS Information Centre, while the Royal College of Nursing has identified 5,000 nursing posts at risk, comprising both qualified nurses and healthcare assistants.

In a visit to the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington, Kent, this morning, he will say:

“In tough times and with little money around, the very first priority should be to protect the frontline NHS.

“Instead, we have a government blowing a vast amount of money on a damaging back-office reorganisation at the same time as it is cutting thousands of nurses, with more than 3,000 already gone. Labour’s priority is protecting the frontline, not a pointless and damaging reorganisation of the NHS.

“We’re calling for the bill to be scrapped, and for some of the money set aside to fund this reorganisation to instead be made available to the NHS to protect the thousands of nursing posts either already cut or set to be cut in the coming years.

“It is a clear and simple choice for the government: by stopping this damaging reorganisation we can fund 6,000 nurses.”

Miliband’s speech today follows his warning in yesterday’s Observer that there are “just three months to save the NHS”, describing the health and social care bill as a “misguided bid to impose a free-for-all market on our health service” that “must be stopped”.

Calling on “everyone who loves the NHS” to “fight to defeat this health bill”, he wrote:

“The NHS is getting worse on this government’s watch. More people have had to wait longer than 18 weeks for treatment. More people are experiencing long waits in A&E and there are more cancelled operations.

“That is the backdrop to the return of the government’s botched health bill to parliament next week. But it will do nothing to address these problems…

“We have already heard the arguments that will be played back against us by the government. None of them holds water. First, the government will say opposition to the bill from health professionals is just from trade-union “vested interests” - as David Cameron implied at prime minister’s questions recently. I disagree. That opposition includes hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, midwives and others.

“They are people who have devoted their lives to working in the NHS. They can see how the bill will undermine the guiding principles of our health service, and how this mangled reorganisation is already causing chaos that damages patient care. That is why the people who know the NHS best like this bill least…

“People at the heart of the NHS, staff and patients, would breathe a sigh of relief if the bill was dropped. Doctors and nurses could get back to their real job – of patient care.

“At the last election, David Cameron cited his commitment to the NHS to show he was a different type of Conservative. And he promised no more top-down reorganisations.

“But all he has done is betray his promises and let people down. It is not too late to stop this bill. We have three months to prevent great harm being done to the NHS. Now is the time for people of all parties and of none, the professions, the patients and now peers in the House of Lords to work together to try to stop this bill.”

As today’s Guardian’s editorial says:

No one, but no one, thinks that the health and social care bill returning to parliament this week is any good [see chart 1].

Chart 1:

Concluding:

Nurses and doctors have lined up to denounce it – even GPs, whom the legislation claims to put in charge. Professional resistance can be dismissed as “producer interest”, but not so the joint editorial published by three specialist periodicals, including the Health Service Journal.

The journal is generally supportive of exposing medicine to competition, yet it damns the particular market-based reforms on offer as “unnecessary, poorly conceived, badly communicated” and “a dangerous distraction”. Meanwhile, a committee dominated by coalition MPs has just concluded that the current upheaval “complicates” necessary cost-cutting, and displaces “truly effective” reforms…

It is hard to think of a starker failure in domestic government since the poll tax.

See also:

• GP in Cameron’s constituency: “Nobody supports the NHS changes” – Shamik Das, February 1st 2012

• Sign my petition to drop Lansley’s monster – Dr Kailash Chand OBE, November 24th 2011

• Cameron’s fantasy list of NHS reform backers – Shamik Das, September 7th 2011

• Doctors still fear coalition health reforms – Daniel Elton, June 27th 2011

• So who backs Lansley’s health reforms then? – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

• Doctors tell Lansley: “Stop this bill” – Dominic Browne, March 15th 2011

• So, Mr Cameron, who backs your NHS reforms? Erm… – Shamik Das, February 2nd 2011

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• The coalition lost its third cabinet minister since the election today, with Chris Huhne resigning to fight charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The former climate change and energy secretary was charged this morning, along with his former wife Vicky Price. He is alleged to have transferred speeding points to her in 2003.

Announcing his resignation, Huhne strenuously denied the allegations, calling the CPS decision “deeply regrettable” and insisting:

“I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree.

“To avoid distraction to either my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down and resigning as energy and climate change secretary.”

Reacting to his resignation, Friends of the Earth praised Huhne for having “championed the environment”, one of the few ministers to try and ensure the government lived up to David Cameron’s pledge to be the “greenest government ever”.

FoE director Andy Atkins, who also warned Huhne’s successor Ed Davey to “stand firm” against the chancellor’s “anti-green agenda”:

“Chris Huhne has championed the environment in an administration that’s shown little enthusiasm for keeping David Cameron’s pledge to be the greenest Government ever.

“He should be commended for insisting on tougher climate targets and fighting for a Green Investment Bank – but his department’s incompetent handling of solar cuts has put 29,000 jobs at risk.

“Leaving consumers to compare energy tariffs as a way to tackle soaring bills is woefully inadequate. What we really need is decisive Government action to get us off the hook of expensive fossil fuels and invest in clean British energy instead.

“The new energy secretary must stand firm against George Osborne’s anti-green agenda and make the case that protecting our environment is a way to boost not hinder our economic recovery.”

Shadow energy and climate change secretary Caroline Flint, meanwhile, said the resignation was a “much-needed opportunity for the Government to change course”, adding:

“David Cameron promised this would be the ‘greenest Government ever’. But on his watch the Green Investment Bank has been delayed, thousands of jobs and businesses in the solar industry have been put at risk and the UK has fallen from third in the world for investment in green growth to thirteenth…

“With record energy bills, we need a government that is prepared to stand up to vested interests in the energy industry and put the public first. Otherwise people will be right to conclude that Ed Davey is just as out of touch with families struggling with the cost of living as the rest of this government.”

In addition to Davey replacing Huhne at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Norman Lamb steps up to take over from Davey as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Jenny Willott becomes an assistant government Whip.

Huhne and his wife are due to appear in court on February 16th.

• Elsewhere today, Ed Miliband delivered a keynote speech on banking reform in Canary Wharf this morning.

Miliband’s speech followed the recent scandals of RBS chief Stephen Hester’s million pound bonus; the stripping of Mr Fred Goodwin’s knighthood, and Network Rail’s plans to reward executives with bonus schemes that could double their salary over the next five years.

Looking ahead to how a better banking system should run, he said:

“There are three principles to restore the link between banks and society.

“Transparency – so that banks publish the details of all their large bonuses. We have called on the government to implement rules we legislated for to make banks reveal how many employees are earning over one million pounds, so that consumers can take this into account when choosing where to bank.

“Accountability to employees so that companies put some of their ordinary employees – maybe a teller normally at high street bank window – on the committee which sets executives’ top pay. If you can’t look one of your own employees in the eye when you receive a huge bonus, you should not get it.

“And accountability to shareholders. When banks that are majority-owned by the taxpayer, David Cameron must exercise some shareholder oversight on top pay. He says he believes that shareholders should exert their influence over pay at the top. All I ask is that he should practice what he preaches.

“After transparency and accountability – is responsibility. That means ending the culture of excessive bonuses. It is corrosive. It enriches individual bankers, but weakens the banking sector as a whole.

“Nobody begrudges rewards for genuine risk-takers. Nobody begrudges exceptional rewards for exceptional performance. That is how capitalism should work. But exceptional rewards for exceptional performance means the kind of huge bonuses which have caused such controversy recently should not be handed out for just doing your job.

“They should not be a one-way bet.”

Miliband also set out how a British Investment Bank – an idea proposed by Will Straw on this blog last month, and endorsed by Lord Mandelson last week – could provide government banking for entrepreneurs when the market fails.

He said:

“The market on its own does not work for small businesses.

“All the most successful economies around the world recognise this: from Asian capitalist states like Singapore, through active industrial states like Germany, to supposedly free market states like the USA.

“And they make sure that the state helps finance to reach the small and medium sized enterprises which need it.

“This isn’t about picking winners. It is about the state getting the market moving, like our most successful competitors have been doing since the fifties. It’s no coincidence that in Britain we haven’t done as much to develop a Mittelstand like Germany.

“Or fast-growing young companies like Apple and Intel – both of which got growth funding from the US government’s Small Business Investment Company programme.

“When it comes to competing internationally, our small and medium sized companies are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. One nation banking means the private sector and the state need to work together in partnership to get the system working for small business.

“It means we will need a much more diverse and competitive banking system which is more rooted in our communities. And it means looking at the case for a British Investment Bank which would provide government backing for entrepreneurs when the market fails.”

As Will wrote today:

“IPPR’s recent report (pdf) with Lord Mandelson on globalisation advocates a National Investment Bank. The remit we suggest is narrower than Miliband’s. Building on an idea (pdf) developed by venture capitalist Gerald Holtham, we suggest that the bank should invest in ‘marketable services’ which would develop a rate of return for the Exchequer.

“This would include big infrastructure projects in the energy and transport sectors but could also cover house building and the roll out of superfast broadband. The policy would turn the much derided Private Finance Initiative on its head by having the public sector lease profitable services to the private sector rather than the other way around.

“With the UK potentially already in a double dip recession and yields on government bonds at historically low levels, currently 2.03 per cent, there has never been a better time for this idea.”

Miliband’s speech today ended another strong week for the Labour leader, who continues to lead on the reforming capitalism agenda. On Tuesday, Labour has called an opposition day debate and vote on bankers’ bonuses, where Miliband will hope to keep up the momentum and keep Cameron on the back foot.

• The health reforms represented another headache for Cameron this week, with the Royal College of GPs the latest professional body to criticise the health and social care bill today.

The RCGP branded the reforms “damaging, unnecessary and expensive”, and said that, despite the amendments, they believed the planned reforms would “cause irreparable damage to patient care and jeopardise the NHS”.

RCGP chair Dr Clare Gerada said:

“We have taken every opportunity to negotiate changes for the good of our patients and for the continued stability of the NHS, yet while the government has claimed that it has made widespread concessions, our view is that the amendments have created greater confusion.

“We remain unconvinced that the bill will improve the care and services we provide to our patients.”

Adding:

“This bill is a burden, it makes no sense, it is incoherent to anybody other than the lawyers. It won’t deal with the big issues that we have to deal with, such as the ageing population and dementia.

“It will result in a very expensive health service and it will also result in a health service that certainly will never match the health service that we have at the moment – or at least had 12 months ago.”

Earlier this week, hundreds of doctors wrote to the Daily Telegraph to warn the bill will “derail and fragment” the NHS. The three hundred and sixty five GPs, specialists and health academics warn that opening the NHS up to “competing private providers” will lead to “fragmentation, chaos and damage to the quality and availability of patient care”.

The letter says:

“The NHS is not in peril if these reforms don’t go ahead. On the contrary, it is the bill which threatens to derail and fragment the NHS into a collection of competing private providers. The Bill will result in hundreds of different organisations pulling against each other, leading to fragmentation, chaos and damage to the quality and availability of patient care.

“As GPs, we agree that clinicians need more involvement in planning the NHS, and that the health service needs to improve. We don’t need a bill to achieve that. Drop the Bill and let’s work on the real issues: improving safety, efficiency, and quality of care.”

And there was further embarrassment for the prime minister over the NHS reforms this week with a senior GP in his own Witney constituency telling the New Statesman that “nobody supports the NHS changes”, warning “things are going to fail, hospitals will close”.

The GP said:

“I would say very few GPs are happy with [the NHS reform] at all… [It’s] not a question of supporting it, it’s a question of going along with it… In my practice, nobody supports the changes…

“People think there should be more clinical involvement in commissioning. But I don’t think many people think that GPs are the right people to commission. They need input into it – but if we wanted to be managers we would have trained to be managers, not doctors.”

Adding:

“Most GPs are incredibly worried about conflict of interest. How can you be a patient’s advocate and look after the money?

“A lot of people think the whole thing’s designed to fail so they can bring private providers in. It’s the one big bit of the economy that hasn’t got private money in it.”

And talking of the effects of the proposed health service overhaul on patients, the GP warns:

“The public have just got no idea what’s hitting them… Things are going to fail, hospitals will close, because the money’s not going to be there. Things will get taken over. And if you’re going to have to make a profit out of it, you’re not going to have the same service.”

Now that even a senior GP in his own constituency has articulated that opposition, will David Cameron finally listen?

Progressives of the week:

The Times newspaper, which this week launched its ‘Save our Cyclists’ campaign. The campaign comes after Mary Bowers, a young journalist at the paper, was hit by a cement truck outside King’s Cross one Friday morning as she made her way to work. Mary remains in a coma.

As George Readings wrote on Left Foot Forward today, the campaign will, fingers crossed, get Transport for London and local authorities across the land to listen and take action to improve cyclists’ safety:

“Unfortunately, her case is all too typical. Lorries make up five per cent of all traffic on British roads but, according to some estimates, are implicated in 50 per cent of cyclist deaths.

“King’s Cross is also a particular hotspot. In December, TfL promised to review the junction there after the fourth cyclist in four years was killed by a lorry. Far from being a priority, no changes were promised until after the Olympics.

“Similarly, two cyclists were killed in late 2011 at Bow Roundabout in east London. Both were using the new ‘Cycle Superhighway’, but a poorly designed junction left them vulnerable to other traffic…

“These cases underline why the Times’s campaign is so important. At both Kings Cross and Bow Roundabout there are some provisions for cyclists, but they haven’t been implemented in a way which actually keeps people safe.

“In total, 16 cyclists were killed in London last year, many of them by lorries. Dozens more, like Mary Bowers, were badly injured. Despite the commonly held belief (based on a statistical anomaly in 2009), the majority of cyclists killed were men, not women.

“Outside London, things are often even worse.

“Cyclists passing Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham, for example, are allowed to share the pavement with pedestrians for quite some distance. Then, without warning, they are forced onto a  ’cycle path’ (a foot-wide strip of green paint) crammed onto the edge of a busy dual carriageway. Ten metres later, the cycle path promptly disappears and cyclists are on their own again…

“Cycle groups have been making these points for years. Perhaps now, with the backing of a major national paper, TFL and local authorities will start to listen. If they don’t, cyclists will continue to pay with their lives.”

Regressive of the week:

International development secretary Andrew Mitchell, who again delayed enshrining in law his pledge to meet the 0.7 per cent target on overseas aid, claiming “there is not enough time left” to get it onto the statute book, despite the pledge being in the Conservative manifesto (page 117, pdf) and coalition agreement (page 22, pdf).

As Left Foot Forward reported yesterday, this is just the latest in a long line of delays:

“In opposition, David Cameron made much of his commitment to ringfence aid spending, as part of his detoxification strategy, pledging not to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest. All well and good.

“Yet the government has delayed enshrining the 0.7 per cent target in law. Again. And again. And again.

“As Left Foot Forward reported on June 4th 2010, just weeks after the election, it’s a promise the Tories failed to immediately deliver once they’d made it to power, omitting it from their first Queen’s Speech.

“Back then, there was criticism the legislation wouldn’t make the statute book by the September 2010 New York Millennium Development Goals summit; it now looks like it won’t even be law by the May 2012 Cape Town MDG summit.”

As for Mitchell’s claim that there’s “not enough time left”, as former DfID spad Richard Darlington wrote, such excuses simply don’t add up:

“This has been one of the longest ever Parliamentary sessions in history, running from May 2010 to May 2012. So what’s gone wrong?

“There are still ten weeks left in this Parliamentary session and another three when MPs will be on holiday. DFID’s Bill is short with just a handful of clauses. It has already had pre-legislative scrutiny from the international development select committee and there is cross-party consensus.

“There is no prospect of it being overturned in the Lords. It could probably be passed on a one line whip on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.”

If the will is there, it would surely have happened by now.

Evidence of the week:

The latest UCAS figures which show, surprise, surprise, that university applications have fallen nearly nine per cent on this time last year, with the figure for mature students even higher at 11 per cent.

For England’s universities, which will be allowed to charge the full £9,000 a year tuition fees from this September, there was a 9.9 per cent drop, with Scotland’s universities experiencing a 1.3 per cent fall in applications.

As UCU general secretary Sally Hunt wrote on Left Foot Forward this week, the fall in applications from mature students in particular is a worrying development:

“Over one in four students who apply to university are mature students with many looking to get back in to education in order to improve their qualifications and chances of long-term employment.

“The government should be making it easier for people in this situation to have a second chance but seem intent on making it harder.

“While ministers have been quick to defend the new fees regime as fairer and more progressive it is neither and will simply penalise those with ambition.

“Perhaps it is not surprising that our best and brightest are being tempted abroad to study. The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, for example, is reporting a surge in applications from Brits.

“Looking ahead, we cannot afford a system that puts people off university if we are to compete in the modern world. Other countries are encouraging their best and brightest to get on, not putting up punitive barriers.

“This government risks returning us to a time when money, not ability, mattered most for success.”

As Fiona Wood wrote in the Guardian, mature students are “the first casualty of higher tuition fees… as fewer people feel able to risk their future on a course that can cost thousands”:

“I started my undergraduate degree in 2005 at the age of 44, no longer wanting to get by on incapacity benefit, as I had done for years since giving up running my own business because of chronic fatigue.

“I decided it was time to gain the skills I needed to get myself back in the workplace, in a job that I could cope with. I am now studying for a master’s degree at Staffordshire University and beginning a professional career in photography.

“For me, education has been the engine of social mobility, and it could be for many other people. If I’d been facing fees of £9,000 when I started, however, I would have been unable to take the gamble, making myself liable for potentially 30 years of repayments on a tuition fee loan.

“I would have seen that amount of debt as too big a barrier, no matter the repayment conditions, and not made the leap that I have now taken. I’d possibly still be on benefits and face having them taken away, with no new qualifications to help me make my way without them.

“The shortsightedness and disjointedness is what most frustrates me about the government’s policymaking, particularly in education. They are narrowing opportunities wherever you look: making it harder for someone with a disability to get by, but making it harder for us to get into a position to find a job that we can do.

“For anyone with existing financial commitments and families to think about, the idea of taking on thousands of pounds of debt is a huge risk; one that in such unpredictable times many feel unable to take.”

This weekend on Left Foot Forward:

Saturday:

• Ben Mitchell’s primer on the economy – part 1.

• The Week Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

Sunday:

• Ben Mitchell’s primer on the economy – part 2.

• The World Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

This week’s most read:

1. Maryland madness: 14-year-old girl’s birthday wish? “Ban gay marriage” – Shamik Das

2. Anonymous expose Ron Paul’s racist links – Alex Hern

3. “Free Pale*****”: BBC tries to settle censorship row – Alex Hern

4. Krugman savages the “austerity debacle” – Shamik Das

5. The insurance industry’s millions to the Tories are set to pay off – Alex Hern

Chris Huhne resigned today as energy and climate change secretary to fight charges he transferred speeding points to his then wife Vicky Price in 2003. The Crown Prosecution Service this morning charged both Huhne and Price with perverting the course of justice, a charge the senior Lib Dem MP strenuosly denies.

Huhne said:

“The Crown Prosecution Service’s decision today is deeply regrettable.

“I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree.

“To avoid distraction to either my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down and resigning as energy and climate change secretary.

“I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh.”

Responding to the resignation, Friends of the Earth praised Huhne for having ”championed the environment” in a government that had lost its way in meeting David Cameron’s pledge to be “the greenest government ever”, and warned that his successor would have to “stand firm against George Osborne’s anti-green agenda” and make the case for the environment.

FoE director Andy Atkins said:

“Chris Huhne has championed the environment in an administration that’s shown little enthusiasm for keeping David Cameron’s pledge to be the greenest Government ever.

“He should be commended for insisting on tougher climate targets and fighting for a Green Investment Bank - but his department’s incompetent handling of solar cuts has put 29,000 jobs at risk.

“Leaving consumers to compare energy tariffs as a way to tackle soaring bills is woefully inadequate. What we really need is decisive Government action to get us off the hook of expensive fossil fuels and invest in clean British energy instead.

“The new energy secretary must stand firm against George Osborne’s anti-green agenda and make the case that protecting our environment is a way to boost not hinder our economic recovery.”

Meanwhile, commenting on the political fallout from the resignation, the BBC’s political correspondent Vicki Young writes:

The departure of Chris Huhne, the second Lib Dem to be forced out of the cabinet, is a blow for the party. His abrasive style has meant that he’s never enjoyed huge support from his Parliamentary colleagues, but grassroots Lib Dems admire him because they think he’s willing to stand up to the Conservatives.

He vented his anger when he confronted George Osborne about the way the Tories behaved during the referendum on AV. More recently he raised eyebrows at cabinet when he interrupted the prime minister at least twice – Tory MPs won’t be sorry to see him go.

As energy secretary he claimed some policy success when he signed the government up to tough new climate change targets.

He’s forged a positive reputation for much of his work to push the green agenda, often battling resistance from the chancellor whose priority is cutting the deficit.

His cabinet job will need to be filled by another Liberal Democrat. Ed Davey is a likely contender for promotion and his job could go to Norman Lamb, who was unlucky to miss out on a ministerial post when the coalition was formed.

If he is acquitted, no-one’s ruling out an eventual return for Chris Huhne.

Huhne and Price are due to appear in court on February 16th.

See also:

• Tabloid attacks on green movement mean we have to raise our game – Reg Platt, November 29th 2011

• Huhne must do more than talk to help the poor this winter – Charles Samuda, November 17th 2011

• Huhne’s hot air may set back fight for climate consensus – Adam Corner, October 27th 2011

• Huhne’s tough talk on energy companies exactly what we need – Natan Doron, September 20th 2011

• Huhne must heed lessons of US to fulfil “250,000 green jobs” pledge – Clare McNeil, July 24th 2011

• Huhne and Greening are not serving the environment, but undermining it – Dominic Maxwell, June 29th 2011

• Huhne needs to impose competition on the energy ‘market’ – Charles Samuda, June 29th 2011

Ed Miliband will lay out his plans for a new era of responsibility at the top of society and outline his vision of “one nation banking” in a keynote speech to Reuters in Canary Wharf this morning.

The Leader of the Opposition will reflect on the scandals of the past week, which have included the row over RBS chief Stephen Hester’s million pound bonus; the de-knighting of former RBS boss Mr Fred Goodwin; and Network Rail’s moves to reward fat cats with bonus schemes that could double their salary over the next five years.

Looking ahead to how a better banking system should run, he will say:

“There are three principles to restore the link between banks and society.

“Transparency – so that banks publish the details of all their large bonuses. We have called on the government to implement rules we legislated for to make banks reveal how many employees are earning over one million pounds, so that consumers can take this into account when choosing where to bank.

“Accountability to employees so that companies put some of their ordinary employees – maybe a teller normally at high street bank window – on the committee which sets executives’ top pay. If you can’t look one of your own employees in the eye when you receive a huge bonus, you should not get it.

“And accountability to shareholders. When banks that are majority-owned by the taxpayer, David Cameron must exercise some shareholder oversight on top pay. He says he believes that shareholders should exert their influence over pay at the top. All I ask is that he should practice what he preaches.

“After transparency and accountability – is responsibility. That means ending the culture of excessive bonuses. It is corrosive. It enriches individual bankers, but weakens the banking sector as a whole.

“Nobody begrudges rewards for genuine risk-takers. Nobody begrudges exceptional rewards for exceptional performance. That is how capitalism should work. But exceptional rewards for exceptional performance means the kind of huge bonuses which have caused such controversy recently should not be handed out for just doing your job.

“They should not be a one-way bet.”

Reflecting further on the problems of the present, he will add:

“These are symbols – and symptoms – of public discontent with a system that is not working any more. Not for our economy. And not for our society. But these moments in our national life should not be the end of the debate. They should be the start.

“This is not about one man, one bonus, or one knighthood. Nor is this about the politics of envy. It is about a culture of responsibility.

“Labour has set out the case for new rules to tackle irresponsibility from the benefits office to the boardroom. Values of fairness matter more than ever when times are tough.

“The consequences of the financial crisis are felt every time a library closes, every time a school can’t afford a new book, and every time a policeman or policewoman is taken off the beat.

“The banking sector needs to understand this. People who did not cause the financial crisis are paying the price. Too many of those who did cause the financial crisis are not.

“Banking has a history of performing invaluable service to the economy which we do not celebrate enough: from Midland Bank’s role restructuring the cotton industry in the 1930s, to Barclays’ role in financing high tech startups in Cambridge in the seventies and eighties, or more recently, the way HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered put up £2.5 billion for a business growth fund focused on British firms.

“But this is a call for banking to recognise it has reached a crossroads. To recognise that continuing on its current path will lead to further isolation from society, greater public anger – and an economy which does not pay its way in the world.

“This is a call on banking to recognise that it should take the path of change. To recognise that it is not isolated from the economy or society. To recognise that we succeed or fail together.

“One nation banking recognises that banks must not be isolated from the rest of the economy. Because banks and small businesses must succeed or fail together, banks must lend to small businesses so we can get the growth and jobs we need for the future.”

And on the forthcoming Parliamentary vote on banking and bonuses, Miliband will say:

“This is about taking the first step away from bonus culture and towards one nation banking. It is about leadership to take the first step towards responsible capitalism. That is why we will have Commons vote on Tuesday.

“We will say that that too many are getting bonuses which are too big, too often. All companies must show responsibility but banks have a particular responsibility because they are either directly or indirectly supported by the taxpayer.

“We will give MPs the chance to vote on having another bank bonus tax to get 100,000 of our young people back to work. but we will also ask MPs to vote on ending a bonus culture based on one-way bets rather than genuine reward for exceptional performance.

“It will not be legislation and it will not be binding. But it will allow the voices of millions of people across our country to be heard. People who do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, who wake up early to go to work and get home late just like you, who work hard just like you.

“Their voices which will be heard through our vote in Parliament on Tuesday. Because at the core of one nation Banking is the idea that as a country, we succeed or fail together.”

The challenge has been made – it’s now up to David Cameron and George Osborne to show they get it with their actions not merely their words.

Miliband has laid out a progressive path to deal with the problems the banking, bankers and bonuses have created, to instill fairness in the system and force responsibility at the top; it’s now time for the government to either back him or come up with something better. The ball’s in their court.

See also:

• The government has the power to stop Hester’s bonus, they just don’t want to – Ben Fox, January 27th 2012

• All in it together? RBS fat cat “in line for £7m payout”. Seven. Million – Shamik Das, January 27th 2012

• Implementing Vickers won’t stop the next crisis – Josh Ryan Collins, December 20th 2011

• How bankers’ bonuses are contributing to the new credit crunch – Cormac Hollingsworth, December 6th 2011

• The rotten borough of the City of London needs to be dragged into the 21st century – Jenny Jones AM, November 4th 2011

• As energy company buckles, Miliband needs to pick more battles – Alex Hern, October 12th 2011

• The fragmented society: How irresponsibility and inequality feed off each other – Duncan Exley, August 12th 2011

A 14-year-old home-schooled girl from Maryland has told the state Senate it would be “the best birthday present ever” if legislators were to vote to outlaw gay marriage.

Sarah Crank made the bizarre birthday wish in a submission to the state judicial proceedings committee, following Democrat Governor Martin O’Malley’s introduction of a bill last week to lift the ban on gay marriage in the east coast state.

She said:

“I really feel bad for the kids who have two parents of the same gender. Even though some kids feel like it’s fine, they have no idea what kind of wonderful experiences they miss out on.

“I don’t want any more kids to get confused about what’s right and OK.

“I really don’t want to grow up in a world where marriage isn’t such a special thing any more. It’s rather scary to think that when I grow up the legislator or the court can change the definition of any word they want.

“If they can change the definition of marriage, then they could change the definition of any word.

“People have the choice to be gay, but I don’t want to be affected by their choice. People say they were just born that way, but I’ve met really nice adults who did change. So please vote ‘no’ on gay marriage.”

Listen to it:

When the story was broken on the Think Progress blog, her mother Mrs Crank waded in in the comments, with such gems as:

“She and many others are affected by the one way tolerance that gays expect but won’t extend to others.”

“Marriage is was and always has been the joining of opposite sexes in a permanent union to produce, provide for, and protect the next generation. It is a beautiful thing, and the ultimate discrimination to legislate that one or the other gender could be excluded.”

“The problem with the GLBT community is that there is this viewpoint that if you love me, if you accept me, then you must celebrate my behaviour and give me everything I want. To me it is similar to alcoholism or drug addiction.”

“Nature itself forbids same sex couples to marry. The parts don’t fit and no children can be created. No laws will ever change the natural law. The rage of the GLBT community is really against God and nature.”

“Yes, so the thought police ever increasing in the public school system can brainwash everyone into a very unhealthy lifestyle.”

And there’s more, much, much more… If this is the level of indoctrination going at home, one wonders what future birthday wishes her wannabe-Widdecombe of a daughter has in store.

However, it’s not all bigotry and ignorance on the gay marriage debate this week, with the Washington Senate yesterday passing a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, 28-21, with the measure now going to the House for final approval, subject to a ballot challenge, as the Washington Post reports:

Even though the referendum clause amendment was rejected, opponents have already promised to file a challenge to the legislation. But that can’t be done until after it is passed by the full Legislature and signed into law by Gregoire. Opponents then must turn in 120,577 signatures by June 6.

If opponents aren’t able to collect enough signatures, gay and lesbian couples would be able to be wed starting in June. Otherwise, they would have to wait until the results of a November election.

Before last week, it wasn’t certain the Senate would have the support to pass the measure, as a handful of Democrats remained undecided.

Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

Lawmakers in New Jersey and Maryland are expected to debate gay marriage this year, and Maine could see a gay marriage proposal on the November ballot.

Proposed amendments for constitutional bans on gay marriage will be on the ballots in North Carolina on May 8 and in Minnesota on Nov. 6.

Six states down, 44 to go…

See also:

• Cameron must speak out against Canada’s anti-gay marriage ruling – James Hallwood, January 13th 2012

• Santorum: The candidate the right loves because he hates gay people – Alex Hern, January 4th 2012

• Equal love: Time for the UK Parliament to recognise gay marriage – Glenis Willmott MEP and Michael Cashman MEP, December 19th 2011

• Time for the Commonwealth to stop the criminalisation of sexuality – Frederick Cowell, October 28th 2011

• Equal Love – the law should recognise gay marriage and same-sex civil partnerships – Peter Tatchell, July 31st 2011

In opposition, David Cameron made much of his commitment to ringfence aid spending, as part of his detoxification strategy, pledging not to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest. All well and good. Yet the government has delayed enshrining the 0.7 per cent target in law. Again. And again. And again.

As Left Foot Forward reported on June 4th 2010, just weeks after the election, it’s a promise the Tories failed to immediately deliver once they’d made it to power, omitting it from their first Queen’s Speech. Back then, there was criticism the legislation wouldn’t make the statute book by the September 2010 New York Millennium Development Goals summit; it now looks like it won’t even be law by the May 2012 Cape Town MDG summit.

Yesterday, international development secretary Andrew Mitchell revealed the legislation would once again be delayed, telling The Sun:

“I don’t think it physically can now because there is not enough time left. We have signed off on the Bill and it’s now with the business managers. They will proceed with it when there is parliamentary time. The most important point, though, is that we are actually doing it – and we have set that out in the figures”

This despite the Tory manifesto pledge (page 117, pdf) to “lock in” the 0.7% target from next year:

“A new Conservative government will be fully committed to achieving, by 2013, the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income as aid. We will stick to the rules laid down by the OECD about what spending counts as aid. We will legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.”

And the coalition agreement pledge (page 22, pdf) that:

“We will honour our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid from 2013, and to enshrine this commitment in law.”

As former Department for International Development special adviser Richard Darlington writes in the New Statesman:

This has been one of the longest ever Parliamentary sessions in history, running from May 2010 to May 2012. So what’s gone wrong?

There are still ten weeks left in this Parliamentary session and another three when MPs will be on holiday. DFID’s Bill is short with just a handful of clauses. It has already had pre-legislative scrutiny from the International Development Select Committee and there is cross-party consensus. There is no prospect of it being overturned in the Lords. It could probably be passed on a one line whip on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.

Adding:

The last time they were in office, the Conservatives halved the aid budget. Labour trebled it. [See Figure 7.1]. The reason the Conservatives made the promise was to achieve all-party consensus and put the issue beyond doubt.

Desmond Tutu said that “a promise made to the poor is a sacred thing”. Politicians should keep their promises, or risk proving cynical voters right when they say that politicians never keep their word.

Figure 7.1:

This is one Tory promise, more than any other, that David Cameron knows he cannot break; the futures of literally millions of the world’s poorest depend upon it.

See also:

• Conservatives to meet aid target by counting ‘made up’ debt relief as aid – David Taylor, January 9th 2012

• Tories are balancing the books on the backs of the world’s poorest – David Taylor, December 2nd 2011

• An open letter to David Cameron on the importance of the 0.7% target – David Taylor, May 17th 2011

• Government review of UK aid – goals and reaction – Shamik Das, March 1st 2011

• Commitment to ring fence UK aid welcome but questions remain – David Taylor, October 21st 2010

• Tories break promise to legislate on 0.7% in first parliament – David Taylor, June 4th 2010

• Campaign launched to commit UK to spending 0.7% of income on development aid – David Taylor, February 3rd 2010

As the UN dithers over whether to take action against the brutal repression of Bashar al-Assad, with Russia set to veto any resolution, the mass killing at the hands of the Syrian regime goes on. And on. And on.

Emad Mahou, an activist with the Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union, today revealed 18 more people were killed by the security forces in Zabadani, close to Wadi Barada, following heavy bombing in the Barada Valley. Among the victims is a 12-year-old girl. He said the assault was carried out by the Republican Guard, commanded by Bashar al-Assad’s feared brother Maher.

This afternoon, Emad called for the West to step up the pressure on Assad, saying the people of Zabadani are “waiting for them to help us”, and that, though the town was under the control of the Free Syria army, without Western intervention “as soon as possible”:

“We are waiting for them to help us, to put some more pressure on the system. We need help to get free from this regime. They are killing us very day, they are bombing us. A few months ago they were shooting us, now they are bombing us with tanks. Maybe tomorrow they will bomb us with aeroplanes…

“Zabadani is liberated. There is no army inside Zabadani, there are no security [forces] inside Zabadani. It is a liberated city and the Free Syrian Army hold the city till now but we are afraid of any invasion from the regime. We cannot fight them forever… we will run out of bullets, we will run out of rockets. We need help.

“We need help from Europe from the the US. We need a no-fly zone, we need them to help us as soon as possible, we can’t stand alone.”

He also said:

“A huge, huge number [of troops] belonging to the Republican Guard were invading the valley of Barada, Wadi Barada, with tanks and they were bombing two cities, Basemah, and the second is Deir Qanoun…

“There are around 11 houses [which] fell down to the ground on the heads of their residents. After five or six hours there were negotiations between the army and the civilians there. They [the army] said get out and take your martyrs and wanted men from the ground. When they got out to take them they [the army] started to shoot them.

“Members of the Free Syrian Army started to fight with the Republican Guard in the area called Ashrafiet al-Wadi… Members of the Free Syrian Army had a big fight with the Republican Guard and kill about 20 of them and destroy a tank.

“We don’t know why they [the Republican Guard] are in the area right now but you can say all the people here are against the system. People go out to protest, to topple the regime, to say we want the regime to leave.”

Listen to Emad’s plea for help:

As Left Foot Forward has long reported, the heinousness of Assad’s regime knows no bounds; as Hamza Fakher, a pro-democracy activist, recently revealed:

“The repression is so severe that detainees are stacked alive and kicking in shipping containers and disposed off in the middle of the sea.

“It is so bad that they’ve invented a new way of torture in Aleppo where they heat a metal plate and force a detainee to stand on it until he confesses; imagine all the melting flesh reaching the bone before the detainee falls on the plate.

“It is so bad that all demonstrators have opted for armed resistance. They know it is about survival now, not about freedom any more. This needs to be highlighted: Syrians are fighting for their lives now, not for freedom.”

People buried alive in shipping containers, tortured on hot metal plates, protesters murdered in hospitals, protesters gunned down and bombed… Something needs to be done. And soon.

See also:

• Syria: When will the West act? – Shamik Das, January 2nd 2012

• Syria ‘safe havens’ point to growing likelihood of civil war – Alex Hern, November 25th 2011

• A Syrian civil war is becoming ever more likely – Alex Hern, October 27th 2011

• Syrian government uses hospitals against protesters – Alex Hern, October 25th 2011

• Syrian Uprising: YouTube clips show continued demonstrations after Hama massacre – Daniel Elton, August 1st 2011

• Syria, where innocence is no defence – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

• No easy path to democracy for Syria – Shashank Joshi, March 30th 2011